Residents evacuated from their homes near Heathrow have told of the moment houses ‘shook’ as a fire engulfed a local substation – cutting off electricity to the airport and 16,000 homes.
Dramatic videos show flames and smoke billowing into the sky during the inferno, which broke out in the London suburb of Hayes at just after 11.30pm yesterday evening.
Vaneca Sinclair had been about to go to bed when ‘suddenly there was this huge bang and the house just shook’. The 64-year-old thought something had crashed into the wall but after opening the front door saw flames.
After running down the street and realising the substation was on fire, she was told by police to return home and grab her belongings before evacuating to a nearby Premier Inn.
Her neighbour, Savita Kapur, 51, also ran out of her home after hearing the initial explosion.
‘I literally just ran out of the house,’ she told the BBC. ‘I have an elderly mother who is in her 80s and not very well at all; I had to escort her into my car and get her out of the area and drop her off to my sisters.
‘When I was driving up my road the second explosion went off and the whole ground shook.’
Another local resident, Rebecca, said she had been sitting in her garden when she heard an explosion and the sky ‘lit up’.
Dramatic videos show flames and smoke billowing into the sky during the inferno, which broke out in the London suburb of Hayes at just after 11.30pm yesterday evening
The major fire forced the closure of Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest hub airports
The smouldering substation this morning, with emergency workers on site
The fire service said that around 10 per cent of the fire was still burning as of 11am this morning
‘I rang my other half who was inside and said ”did you hear that bang?’ she said.
‘He looked outside and saw all of our neighbours coming out to see what was going on.
‘It was a massive fire and the bang was like a huge explosion. The sky lit up.’
Rebecca and her partner walked up to nearby North Hyde Road – just a stone’s throw away from the substation.
She added: ‘We were stood there and we could feel the heat on our faces because the fire was so big.
‘There were so many people and fire engines, police and ambulance – it was very scary.
‘We heard they were evacuating people who were closer but thankfully we are safe.’
Adeel Anwar said the heat and billowing smoke from the blaze were ‘absolutely apocalyptic.’
The fire broke out at the substation at around 11.30pm last night
Dramatic images show flames tearing through the structure as smoke billows into the night sky
He told Sky News that as he drove past the substation ‘I just felt the heat – I tried to just get out of the area as quick as possible.’
Matthew Muirhead was working a night shift on Thursday when he noticed smoke rising from the electrical substation.
‘We saw a bright flash of white and all the lights in town went out,’ the 42-year-old said.
‘It was 11.30pm when we saw it, we were heading to West Drayton, so we went to check it out, we heard the sirens as we were headed to Bulls Bridge roundabout.
‘We saw a bright flash of white and all the lights in town went out.
‘My wife rang me and told me our electric was out – I found out a few hours later that Heathrow was completely shut down.’
A resident living in the Hayes area who did not want to be named told the PA news agency she heard a ‘massive explosion’ just before midnight.
‘All the power went off, it just smelled like burning,’ she said, adding it was difficult to work out where exactly the fire was.
One witness told LBC: ‘I was crossing a bridge and there was a huge explosion.’
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the area and a 200-metre cordon erected
Around 150 people were evacuated from the surrounding area following the blaze by the London Fire Brigade.
Scientific advisers have been brought on site to monitor air quality in the area due to the ‘significant smoke’, the fire service’s assistant commissioner Pat Goulbourne said.
The substation fire in Hayes involved 25,000 litres of cooling oil fully alight, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.
Speaking to broadcasters at the scene in Hayes, London Fire Brigade deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith said: ‘At 11.23pm on the evening of the 20th of March, London Fire Brigade received 212 calls to a fire in a high-voltage substation near Heathrow Airport.
‘The fire involved a transformer comprising of 25,000 litres of cooling oil fully alight. This created a major hazard due to the still live high-voltage equipment and the nature of the oil-fuelled fire.’
The Metropolitan Police declared a major incident for the fire at 12.42am on Friday, Mr Smith said.
Around 10% of the substation remains alight.
Some 67,000 households were left without power due to the incident and 5,000 homes remain without power.
There is also no power at Heathrow Airport terminals two or four, Mr Smith said.
Residents have been ‘strongly advised’ to keep their windows and doors closed.
The fire has knocked out power to the airport and 16,300 homes in west London
Some 100,000 homes were without power overnight as a result of the fire near Heathrow Airport, according to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, adding this had now been brought down to 4,000 after the fire was brought under control.
Hillingdon Council said this morning that most evacuees have dispersed and made their own arrangements.
They said the council is assisting 12 people with hotel accommodation until it is safe to return home.
Six local schools have been closed following the substation fire, Hillingdon Council said.
An update on the council’s website said Nestles Avenue Early Years Centre, Pinkwell Children’s Centre, Pinkwell Primary School, Botwell House Catholic Primary School, Dr Triplett’s C of E Primary School and The Global Academy were all shut.
Mr Miliband said that National Grid told him they had not seen ‘anything like the scale’ of what happened with the ‘seriousness’ of the fire.
‘But it makes Heathrow look quite vulnerable and therefore we’ve got to learn lessons, as I say, about not just Heathrow but how we protect our major infrastructure,’ he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Mr Miliband said the fire ‘appears to have knocked out a back-up generator as well as the substation itself’.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It’s too early to say what caused this but I think obviously we will have to look hard at the causes and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major institutions like Heathrow.’
